Personalized and adaptive learning has been described as the so-called holy grail of education. The idea is not new , though its technological instantiation is getting increased attention. Many of the personalized learning systems now available begin with an articulation of the knowledge space – i.e. what the learner needs to know.

We’ve released a new report: Preparing for the Digital University: a review of the history and current state of distance, blended, and online learning (.pdf). Sometimes new is not better, especially when it impacts the lives of people. Remember the failure of Udacity and San Jose State University project ? This is bad innovation.

In a few weeks, our edX course Data, Analytics, and Learning (#DALMOOC https://www.edx.org/course/utarlingtonx/utarlingtonx-link5-10x-data-analytics-2186 ) will start. We (Carolyn Rose, Dragan Gasevic, Ryan Baker, and I) have spent the last several months thinking through the course structure and format. Everything now has social attached.

Higher education is digitizing. All aspects of it, including administration, teaching/learning, and research. The process of becoming digital has important implications for how learning occurs and how research happens and how it is shared. I’m happy to announce the formation of the digital Learning Research Network (dLRN), funded by a $1.6m
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We will be running an open online course from Oct 8-Nov 16 , 2012, addressing some of the concepts in this post. Registration is free (duh). Our department was the first in Canada to go exclusively laptop. This change resulted in teachers doing what they always did – presenting content, now with PowerPoint instead of overhead slides.
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I’m at the Open Education conference in Park City, Utah. The conference is now in its impressive 10th year. I did a presentation following Andrew Ng (Coursera). Slides and video are below. The focus is on my early experiences with MOOCs, their current state, and future directions (as well as some angst and hope).
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If you’re even casually aware of what is happening in higher education, you’ve likely heard of massive open online courses (MOOCs). They have been covered by NY Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, TV programs, newspapers, and a mess or blogs. And hundreds of thousands of students have signed up and taken these online course offerings.
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The current generation of students will witness the remaking of our education system. Change is happening on many fronts: economic, technological, paradigmatic, social, and the natural cycles of change that occur in complex social/technical systems. Each of these are a different lens for viewing big, dramatic, change. It’s much, much bigger.
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